We headed up to The Resort At Squaw Valley for their annual Christmas kickoff celebration. We started the night with a sleigh ride pulled by a beautiful, huge horse.

Hannah Gray and I were petting the horse, when apparently, he decided he didn’t like it. We were caught on camera jumping out of the way

Hannah Gray actually WALKED up to Santa and Ms. Clause with me, I think probably because Ms. Clause was there. But she sat on her lap and TALKED to them!!! They asked her her name, how old she was and what she wanted for Christmas. She was a mouse up there, but we were so, so proud of her!! You can see how excited she was and proud of herself in the second picture too. She planned to tell them that she wanted a “pink ski helmet with blue goggles”, but clamed up a bit so Santa asked her if she wanted a baby doll and of course she said yes. I took Tenley up there too, but she went ballistic, so we didn’t push it. However, when we went back up to get HG, Santa asked Tenley if she would give him a high five and she did so without missing a beat, she wasn’t scared at all. She just didn’t want to sit on his lap. I guess I can’t blame her.

First thing on Thanksgiving morning, we headed to downtown Sacramento where Ethan ran in the Feed the Hungry 5k. It was his first race ever and he placed in the top 10%! It was a huge event with 29,000 racers!

At the starting line…

With Daddy at the finish

Tenley giving her “bahk bahk” or “gobble gobble” and then Ethan carving his first turkey!

The spread (including Flat Stanley for my nephew Caleb)

We had a great relaxing day which included watching Miracle on 33th street with our dessert! We are blessed!

We had the opportunity to head up to Woodleaf, a Young Life property about 2 hours northwest of us to see our area in action during their winter weekend camping trip. We were invited to come and to bring the girls with us and here we are at lunch where the girls enjoyed their first formal Young Life experience!

We got home and had another pajama party with popcorn. This was Tenley’s first time eating it and she LOVED it as seen here cramming her mouth! Or as Hannah Gray said to us once, “look mommy and daddy, I do it like you do. See, I take a handful and cram it all into my mouth!!”. Awesome.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

My parents were out for their yearly visit to Napa for a class that my dad takes out there every year. Last year, they invited us to join them as we drove down from Seattle. Then this year, we drove out to spend a couple days in Napa, then we all came back to Roseville and then headed up to Tahoe before we wrapped things up with them in San Francisco. What a fun week while they were here and so, so thankful that they were able to make the trip!